Now we're going to travel across the ocean and catch up with Max, who went with the basketball team to Greece. I got to know Max second semester because we were both in Honors Composition together. He's an Elementary Education major from Superior (near Boulder), CO. Max decided to make a slideshow and running commentary of his trip. I've split it up over four days so make sure to check back Tuesday-Thursday this week to see the rest of the slideshow and read about all the cool things Max saw.
Howdy there everybody,
My name is Max Stanford. This past May I had the utmost privilege to travel to and tour around one of Europe’s most ancient and historic countries. This country also happens to be in the middle of a great economic crisis as well as experiencing a sweltering and unprecedented heat wave. I’m, of course, talking about the absolutely stunning country of Greece. Ancient Greeks gave us the gifts of modern democracy, laid the foundations for our language, and established the World’s greatest sporting event, the Olympics. Basically, we “borrowed” everything that our nation stands for from the Greeks. In return, because we as Americans always return a favor, we let them borrow the finest brains that Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs had to offer.
Anyways, I was blessed with a “once in a lifetime” opportunity to visit one of the World’s most sought after tourist locations. Add to this the fact that we, the Men’s varsity basketball team, had lined up three games to play while we were there and you have created a college basketball player’s dream vacation. Needless to say, I was counting the days until we departed.
Due to the fact that we were playing games while we were over there, Coach Juckem (our coach), was allowed to schedule 10 practices in late April and early May. For those of you who do not play a sport let me tell you, running around inside a gymnasium in the middle of the spring is a miserable experience! But, as you can imagine, the team could care less. It didn’t matter that we were practicing at high noon, in a 90 degree gym with 100 percent humidity. That didn’t matter. For 10 days in the middle of May we were going to be in the middle of the world’s second best climate: the Mediterranean (This is second only to, of course, Boulder, Colorado).
After 10 grueling, but rather painless practices, the date had arrived. May 10th, 2011. We had our bags packed, our passports tucked in various locations, and our iPod’s fully charged. We were ready for our greatest adventure. We took a charter bus, as we normally do for all away basketball games, to Chicago which was a four hour bus ride. By the time we arrived at O’Hare International Airport we had a little over three hours to kill in the international terminal before our Swiss Air flight took off. But at this point, we had all waited long enough for this day to come that waiting another three hours was nothing.
From Chicago we flew eight hours to Zurich, Switzerland. I have to say that if any of you get a chance to explore Europe be sure to stop by Switzerland. There is not a more polarizing and stunning landscape in the world! Zurich lies in the lowlands of Europe’s mightiest mountain range: the Alps. From Zurich we flew to Athens. But not before an American passenger, thankfully not with our 42 person party, got terribly ill on the taxi ride from our gate to the runway. Literally, right as the engines were beginning to roar and the plane started to inch forward, a woman a few rows behind me yelled for us to wait and turn around. I could feel the cabin pressure drop as every single person in our party collectively held our breath in hopes that she would be ignored. Unfortunately for us, the flight attendant got in touch with the pilot and we turned around.
By now, we were getting extremely anxious. I can only compare the feeling of anxiety that all of us felt to that of a blind date. Although I will admit, I have never experienced, but you can imagine the emotional rollercoaster my teammates and I were going through. We had traveled half the world and were a mere two and a half hours away and yet we had to wait another hour. This is where the blurred picture of the ambulance is taken from: the runway in Zurich, Switzerland.
After the ill man was removed from our plane, we were off. We were flying towards Athens. The view out my window as we descended into Athens was beyond words. Only cliché words such as picturesque, and breath taking begin to describe what I say. The total population of the country of Greece is 11 million people and out of that 11 million, five million live in Athens and the surrounding suburbs. It is literally a sprawling metropolis similar to Chicagoland here in the United States.
After everybody had gotten their bags from the baggage claim, we met one of our tour guides for the trip: Yanni. Words to describe Yanni: chain smoker, tan, skinny, Jersey Shore multiplied by Hollister and divided by Abercrombie, basketball superfan, and creator of the phrase “right right now.” We knew that we were in for a wild ride with Yanni leading the way.
Before we got too comfortable in Athens we received some slightly terrifying news: there were riots in downtown Athens and we were not going to be able to take our tour bus to the hotel, we were going to have to walk.
By the time we reached our hotel we had been traveling for over 24 hours. Four to the airport, three in the terminal, eight on the transatlantic flight, four in the Zurich airport, including the delay caused by the ill individual, two and a half to Athens, and finally two into Athens, including the trek through downtown through the fire and flames. Add in the time change, and the adults on the trip were tired. We, on the other hand, couldn’t sleep. We started our three-day mediterranean cruise in the morning. We were going to see all of the famous islands where National Geographic makes all their money: Mykonos, Santorini, Patmos (recently tagged in Vogue Magazine as “the place to go in Greece,” and Crete. After that we were off to see the ruins at Delphi, then the amphitheatre at Epidaurus, Olympus after that, and finally back to Athens for our games (and for those of you who are paying attention that is our entire trip mapped out in a sentence). We didn’t sleep a wink that first night!
At 3:30 in the morning I had had enough of my hotel room. I gathered up some of my teammates and we wandered around the hotel. Eventually I stumbled upon the hotel’s top floor which was an open air bar. From this floor we could see what felt like the entire city of Athens. We could see the Port of Piraeus, where our cruise departed from, to the Parthenon, to the Greek parliament. Three of us sat up there from 3:30 am until 7:00 and watched the sun rise over the city of Athens.
The first full day we were in Greece we embarked on our three day Mediterranean cruise. Our first stop was my favorite stop of the entire trip: Mykonos. Famous for its windmills, white houses, and blue doors, Mykonos is one of Greece’s most famous islands. I think the reason I fell in love with Mykonos was the fact that we were there at sunset. I watched the sunset on my first day in Greece wearing my bright mango FC Barcelona jersey with the windmills at my back overlooking the city. I will never forget Mykonos.
To be continued tomorrow...
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